Becoming informed citizens through reading of newspapers

Students at Amherst Regional High School are becoming more informed about the world around them.

With sponsorship from Sifto Salt, ARHS was able to implement a newspapers in education program as a way to help students build literacy skills and become more informed citizens.

Becoming informed citizens through reading of newspapers

Students at Amherst Regional High School are becoming more informed about the world around them.

With sponsorship from Sifto Salt, ARHS was able to implement a newspapers in education program as a way to help students build literacy skills and become more informed citizens.

Twenty copies of the Amherst Daily News are delivered to the school each morning, with some being used in classroom, some distributed to teachers and administrators, and some go to the library for students recreational use.

"Its helping to keep the students in touch a little bit more with national, international and local news," said ARHS librarian Jan Matthews. "It is keeping them informed. I know from my days as a student there were certainly times when I was unaware of what was going on outside of my little universe of books and work and homework. Just having all these papers available makes a big difference."

In Janice Colemans special education class, some students choose to read a newspaper during silent reading time while others make scrapbooks from pictures and stories.

At the student resource centre, teacher Kathy MacKay assigns questions to her students based on certain articles.

She said the program has gotten one hearing-impaired boy wanting to read, when he had no interest before.

"Now he comes in everyday and (the newspaper is) the first thing he wants to grab usually," MacKay said.

Ernie Crowe, plant controller at Sifto, said his company felt it was a worthy cause to sponsor because theres a definite educational value in reading a daily newspaper.

"Theres an information purpose, to keep kids up-to-date on events going on in and around the community, world events, and national events," Crowe said. "They could do it on the internet, sure, which a lot of them probably do, but if you have the hard copy there, those who might not be as computer-literate as others may not have that same opportunity."